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Anarchy Bang: Introducing Episode Ten - Communist (con)

This week we will try to have an conversation about why anarchist are not communists, why we are often against them, and use Commune magazine as an contemporary example of how this looks. This is not about Commune being bad, but about what the consequences of communist politics in practice using Commune as an appropriate framing of the same. What would an anarchist Commune magazine look like? Is it possible to imagine anarchist triumpialism today? Is it possible to imagine an anarchist project drawing in $10,000 in Kickstarter money without being Crimethinc?

It has to be noted that communism tries to solve a legitimate problem(exchange) on a general political economic level. For me this simply fails. The answer to the issue of exchange is diffuse association and break off not a pan political economic system. The non nation federalist structures of classical anarchism loot a lot like the non nation communes that communists like to imagine but again the deciding factor of difference and emphasis is association as opposed to a political economic solution.

Communists have always wanted to have their cake and eat it to in regards to preserving all the material abundance that is associated with exchange. THAT is why they fail. The idea of anti-exchange should be a process of simplification, contraction and diffusion not an attempt at a general solvent which fails in regards to things like economic calculations and the stranger/friend distinction.

"communism tries to solve a legitimate problem(exchange) on a general political economic level."

to me, exchange is secondary to the issue of production/consumption, and the inseparable issues of excess and profit-seeking. even leaving aside the primal issues of WHAT is being produced and HOW, the production of excess is what leads to exchange for profit.

whether you think he was a bad man or not (I happen to think he was), basically everything Marx published during his lifetime, and the majority of his work, is a CRITIQUE of political economy in general, not another variety of it. So I don't even know what you're trying to say in your comment.

In 1926, the U.S. Supreme Court in Euclid v. Amber Realty held that local zoning ordinances were a valid exercise of local police power and did not violate the constitutional rights of private property owners.;)

why communists are not anarchists is because anarchists cannot get their shit together and actually challenge the state. Still, would the communist state actually wither away? !917 to 1924 under Lenin and the state did not look like withering away. Of course, this was because the bourgeois were still a threat... so how long will the communist state be in control? Probably forever. The world would have to communist in order for the withering away to happen.

uh … it's not going so well for the commies either unless you're including china? Do you seriously believe that whoever ends up being lenin in your hypothetical future will permit the state to "wither away"? Thats some dangerous naiveté, if so.

Yes 9:51, everyone gets the horse and cart reversed, just the organisational hierarchy of bureaucratic State structure lays the seeds for class strata to form, and it always frustrates me and my colleagues at the Politic Cabaret when Marxists insist on the opposite process, as if Neanderthals had an aristocracy and serfdom, absurd nonsense!

it must be large and complex if no one has been able to smash it yet. I think it has evolved into a sprawling cybernetic entity that dwarfs even our ability to conceptualize it. You may be able to smash bits and pieces of it but good look changing the whole productive process with a small band of ideological rebels.

is you can engage with it and the game changes in relation to your behavior. I know most of you play RPGs but if you've ever played FPSs you know that sometimes it pays to play aggressively and dog the bots and other players, other times camping will get results and sometimes its better to spectate and if you are getting skunked maybe quit the game and come back later. But sometimes you get ownage and your play is accelerated and you dominate the game, this is a jouissance for those who have experienced it.

in your locale what else is there to do besides help your neighbors and help yourself in the process? You could go it alone but this isn't an option for most people but whatever happens it would be anarchy for a while until someone forms another state.

I wanna see all those Preppers who invested in their paranoia be losers to the overall goodness of folk. Also, I don't think "the State" is the logical evolutionary end product of social cooperation, there can be decentralized hamlet clan based associations, which may be a type of tribal primitive commune-esque arrangement, but the diversity and variety will be welcome and inspiring compared to the uniformity of global capitalism.
I myself will arrange for a round table to be built under the largest tree on the highest land in the region where we Stirnerian Knights shall assemble every full moon to debate and pass sentence upon moralist authoritarians!

"why communists are not anarchists is because anarchists cannot get their shit together and actually challenge the state."

communists actually challenge the state? or do they simply challenge some aspects of how the state operates? i see the latter rather clearly, and nothing of the former. the state "withering away" is delusional, even critical-thinking commies see that.

So i listened to this solecast, pen ready to write up some snark, but there was not much in it for me, at least nothing juicy/spicy. yet here are my notes/reportback:

Sole presents this podcast by saying "Commune" mag is about how "revolutionary, anti-state, cooperative, whatever, non-ideologically driven...[awkward pause]...revolutionary projects can look like in the 21st century". They make the caveat that this is their personal interpretation, not how the magazine describes itself.

Then Jasper self-deprecatingly briefly whines about the hardships of the rat race of being an academic and a poet. Sole complains about the lack of modern anti-state poetry and how it's hard to find.

After that, Jasper begins to talk in general terms about things like "Occupy" and "the Oakland commune", and communes, and of "revolutionary moments" that "collapse present, future and past", of "being there" and how those moments somehow carry the baggage of all the "struggles of human history". How in these moments "people feel different" to Jasper, how they all shared a "temporary insanity" and "crazy optimism". Then Jasper confesses that the prospects for or of revolution look bleak, that "I have to believe that there's a possibility that we can make it out of it. I can't imagine living without it. It'd be too bleak."

Jasper then admits to being influenced by communization theory, that their ideas are "complex and weird" and they they're interested in taking these "obscure marxist theories" and distill them or make them understandable for a wider audience. Sole then asks Jasper about the relationship between communization theory and tiqqun and the Invisible Committee. Jasper answers that although when these texts were beginning to be translated and circulated around the same time in US, a link was tried to be made between them, but they're actually different bodies of thought. Jasper says that the main difference is that tiqqun/I.C. believes that communism can be built in the present moment, in advance of any revolutionary moment, while communization theory says the opposite; that there's no hope of trying to do that, that communism can only emerge from these moments of rupture. Here is where I quote Jasper out of context "...chickens are two steps away from communism". Ok, I couldn't do it, the context is that Sole says he has some chickens, aspiring to Tarnac, Jasper then says this half sincerely commending him, half mocking him for it.

After Sole makes clear that he's team tiqqun / I.C. / Tarnac, Jasper makes clear though he shares a lot tactically and logistically with the I.C., he and the editing team in "Commune" mag are actually leftcoms and that "they publish all kinds of things they disagree with" and that they aim for a breadth of writers and readership, that includes anarchos.

Then both Jasper and Sole coincide in expressing the feeling that they are currently in a different moment from "occupy" or "BLM", and that they feel a generational disconnect. Something about millenials and memes, and that "Commune" mag does not wish to be directed towards that audience, Jasper says he sees some appeal in writing something his mom can understand.

Then they reflect about the meaning of the word "commune" about it being both an ideal place and a physical space. Jasper says the "Oakland commune" was as such partly descriptive and partly as an aspiration of what they wanted it to be. Then he speaks of the importance of "assembly", not as a formal process, but as a coming together to change how you relate to people around you, that keeps political groups from getting stuck in their habits. He says it takes patience, that riots move to quickly for that.

After that, they talk about agriculture. That bit was kinda interesting.

Uh...well, yeah. i wrote another comment on anews. im sippin on tea with rum.

You parade your anarchist subcultural pig ignorance with this straw man argument about the Beneath-the-Planet-of-the-'Jacobin' magazine 'Commune' magazine. There is no communism in 'Commune.' 'Commune' are cosseted upper middle class identity politics liberals who can't cop a buzz off being called liberals. Critiquing them on the terms or some on-existent communism here is shooting fish in a barrel.

"Commune" are so abject in their fealty to identity politics idiocy that they think banks and the real estate industry are expressions of "white supremacy" -- and not of capitalism! How "communist" is that? See thier stupid "Anti-Anti-Antifa" piece for this.

Not a dichotomy. Capitalism is easily argued to be rooted in white supremacy in the American context. There's plenty of evidence around things like neighbourhood zoning, lending policies, disproportionate rates of poverty etc.

If you can't think of ways that banks and real estate can be racist, you're not thinking very hard.

Racism starts as a shortcut the human mind takes when it can't conceptualize the personhood of every individual in a society. Talking about racism without acknowledging that all mass societies are racist is just chasing your own tail. It's like trying to prove that oxygen causes cancer. You're gonna find it fucking everywhere.

remember when they came to the continents they named the americas and said the natives there had no soul, that they’re savages closer or equal to beasts or animals? something something about speciesm, ontology, greek philosophy of man over nature hierarchy thing, long conference, got bored...

But you can still point at mountains of compelling evidence that a system of privileges oriented around the perceptions of racial identity has defined the economic history of the Americas since European contact.

It's so obvious, it's more interesting for me to ask why someone would try to deny this?

What is there to gain from arguing against damn near irrefutable reality? Edgelord points? Addiction to internet debate? A rearguard action against the loss of said privileges? Place your bets!

okay so first abject is an adjective so that sentence doesn't really make sense.

Also maybe you should try reading the actual article:

"North American antifascism is an even more recent phenomenon, emerging within the last decade from the Anti-Racist Action networks that expelled Nazi skinheads from the punk and hardcore scenes in the 1980s. As time went on, many within the ARA network recognized that their practices were overly narrow and their conception of white supremacy too focused on individuals, as opposed to the economic and political institutions of white supremacy: police, courts, banks, employers, and realtors."

the author clearly states white supremacy emerges from these institutions, not that these institutions are caused by white supremacy.

I used to love this website but seriously there's nothing here anymore except the same five people writing actual gibberish to one another. IGD has no comments, and infoshop turned to trash ages ago. RIP talking to anarchists on the internet I guess.

To repeat myself, hopefully for the last time: a bank is a capitalist institution. It is an expression of capitalist social relations. It is not an institution of racism -- at least not necessarily. Yes, banks often have racist policies, but if the "maximum program" of identity politics was realized we would live in a perfectly color-blind version of the same exploitative, inegalitarian and ecologically ruinous capitalist mode of production that we endure now. Identity politics is not antagonistic to capitalism and a cognitive hiccup like the one referred to above in "Jacobin" -- whoops, I mean "Commune" shows this.

You're... sort of floating in a snowglobe of assertions there. No judgement tho, I do the same!

Where to start?

Every identity that's antagonistic to capitalism is still an identity so you must be talking about liberal forms of identity, which are willfully blind to the real problem, right?

Banks don't have to be racist but apparently they've been deployed very successfully that way for centuries, or maybe forever. Perhaps the tool can't escape the user, eh? Why bother insisting that I could theoretically use an assault rifle to hunt deer?

In general, I think you want clear Marxist definitions and to rant about IdPol but those are just your preferences for understanding that stuff.

I'm definitely not arguing for a "colourblind society" run by banks, only saying that if an institution is openly racist for centuries, we can safely say it's a racist institution, whether or not it could theoretically do something else.

No, because your paper-thin analysis delves in liberalism.. i.e. mistaking the tools and structures for the system that's using those. A bank is just a bank. It's a place where people with money put their money into.

that determine red lining, sub prime mortgages and pay day loans that prey on poor and disproportionately people of color that are racist. What is a bank really? These ciphers were originally developed by people, machine intelligence is the evolution of human consciousness. Who put the AI in my gAIa? Who put the MAGA in my zine?

Wow I didn't realize that just mentioning empirical data and statistics concerning financial capital assets could hit the nerve of antifa fanatics it makes me think its more a matter with them of semantics when it comes to semitics.

managed to hallucinate on even 600 mcg. of LSD. What I have seen, almost always in the backwoods, is what is actually, physically right in front of me - so deeply, clearly, and finely that it makes 20-20 eyesight blindness by comparison. I have also seen incredibly fine visions with my eyes shut (some people refer to these, which are called eiedic visions - sp.?- as "hallucinations").

You talk like someone who has never done LSD, or has never done it with appropriate intent.

So I use this little thought experiment designed to slash and burn away all the leftist garbage and far-right misrepresentation and any other stupid noise that gets in the way.

For simplicity, let's call it - the politics of 10,000 years ago. Like, how would you explain the general ideas of "communism" in that context?

So my question for @bang is, does this help clarify the discussion? Chuck out all the mistakes, horrors and failings of the last century, not that we should forget them! Far from it! It's just a separate discussion about not trusting cult leaders, commie or otherwise haha

But yeah, you end up talking about how any ancient community would have dealt with conflict around the sharing of resources, or defined their relationships around mutual gain and stuff like that. Much more useful IMO.

Thanks, I will definitely pass along a revised version of this question. Let me know if this captures your thoughts:

QUESTION: how would you explain the general idea of communism in the context of the politics of 10,000 years ago, when people's primary concerns were how to deal with conflict around the sharing of resources, or defined their relationships around mutual gain, etc?

reflecting on my own answer, I'm not sure that this thought exercise clarifies the question of communism because I see communism as a social 'solution' to the consolidation of power and resources by 'greedy' people (not saying it's a successful solution! just one that has been tried a few times...) and the capacity for humans to consolidate power on that scale was just much less of an issue back then.

I'm interested in why you think this is a valid / fruitful metric, though! Are you suggesting that we "should" try to emulate solutions to the politics of 10k years ago? Why would that be a good idea?

I didn't intend it to be too literal, more about trying to cancel out all the baggage that people tend to bring to the discussion based on their perceptions of the failures of the "solution" thus far.

For example, 10,000 years ago, there's no state to capture and implement social programs with. There's only you and a few friends, pissed off about some other greedy people or trying to get along with each other, etc.

Also, I realized I'm a bit off topic because I don't know anything about this commune magazine or care lol

You're probably just intellectually poor beyond your pretense at brilliance... How can any paradigm or "solution" exist outside a given socio-historical context? This is just pointless to approach contemporary ideas through the biased, self-serving, and mostly-blotted lens of how things were 10,000 years back (but where in the world!? among who!?). Were those people back then -wherever that was- still dealing with an invasive mass commodity society all around them? Did the industry even exist or wasn't it just a bunch of craftmen? Was this Tolkien's Third Age? Weren't the Rephaim/Nephilim giants interfering with human affairs and especially their politics? WHO KNOWS!

Communism just like, to a lesser extent anarchism, has arisen as a solution to a particular historical set of conditions. This is why communism in Russia has had very different results than in China or parts of Latin America, as it indeed failed to overcome the small capital of gangs, among other issues, because first and foremost it was pushed by a specific gang in 1918 and onward.

I wish we could have a long discussion on how people simply don't neatly fit into the boxes of anarchism or socialism/communism in the ways some radicals prefer. Ethel Mannin for example called herself an anarchist-socialist and several times over Sartre's life called himself and anarchist. In 1970 said he "was always more of an anarchist than a Marxist"..
Before anyone bangs on about his involvement with the left, he never joined the Communist Party and p44 of Talking with Sartre: Conversations and Debates is useful.

You're seriously taking this serial sex abuser, this fakester, this philosophical repackager as an anarchist just because he called himself anarchist a few times in his life? I guess it must be that golden aura still shining around them Left libidinal French post-war philosophers, still mystifying some academics in North America...

I hear ya. At the risk of flirting with a primmie noble savage fallacy (I'm of mixed ancestry), that's just how I prefer to frame my version of something that could be described as "communism" but that word usually triggers people, so ... Yeah.

Obviously I'm a cultural Marxist soyboy kuck and you should immediately double down on all the trolling.

Also, Sartre was a decadent booj creep but he understood the darkness in the heart of western liberal society and articulated it very well IMO.

He's like, an aristocratic anarchist sympathizer in my books, somebody who understood power and felt some abstract pity for those of us beneath the boot. Maybe because he had a hideously ugly frogface and got treated poorly for it?

"Being fixed by the gaze of the other is the worst thing ever" or something. Isn't that him?

Heh! I'm anti-intellectual lumpenprole scum, barely even literate! I scream gibberish and chase people when I see them reading books, stopping only to poop in my own hand, so I have something to throw!

If you define decadent as consuming lots of amphetamines, gitanes and coffee is what you mean, then sure. If however you mean others trying to put him on a pedestal then you can only blame the idiots who attempted to put him on one. *rolls eyes*